Napoleon
Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the
Mediterranean island of Corsica. Through his military
exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from
obscurity to become Napoleon I, Empereur des Francais
(Emperor of the French). He is both a historical figure
and a legend—and it is sometimes difficult to separate
the two. The events of his life fired the imaginations
of great writers, film makers, and playwrights whose
works have done much to create the Napoleonic legend.

Napoleon
Bonaparte's portrait

Napoleon I
- French Emperor

Napoleon
decided on a military career when he was a child,
winning a scholarship to a French military academy. His
meteoric rise shocked not only France but all of Europe,
and his military conquests threatened the stability of
the world.

"The most
dangerous moment comes with victory." -
Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon
was one of the greatest military commanders in history.
He has also been portrayed as a power hungry conqueror.
Napoleon denied being such a conqueror. He argued that
he was building a federation of free peoples in a Europe
united under a liberal government. But if this was his
goal, he intended to achieve it by taking power in his
own hands. However, in the states he created, Napoleon
granted constitutions, introduced law codes, abolished
feudalism, created efficient governments and fostered
education, science, literature and the arts.

Emperor
Napoleon proved to be an excellent civil administrator.
One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of
the revision and collection of French law into codes.
The new law codes—seven in number—incorporated some
of the freedoms gained by the people of France during
the French revolution, including religious toleration
and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the
codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the
basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized
France's government by appointing prefects to administer
regions called departments, into which France was
divided.

Napoleon's
own opinion of his career may be summed up by following
quotation:

"I closed the gulf
of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded
merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found
it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all
regardless of religion and before the law. I fought
the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the
alternative was the destruction of all this. I
purified the Revolution."

—
Napoleon
Bonaparte

It was
widely thought that Napoleon was very short.
However, it is possible the inaccurate translation of
old French feet ("pieds de roi") to English is
partly responsible. The French measure of five foot two
(5' 2"), recorded at his autopsy, actually
translates into five feet six and one half inches (5'
6.5") in English measure, which was about the
average height of the Frenchman of his day. It is also
probable that the men of his Imperial Guard, with whom
he was usually seen against were very tall, creating the
illusion that Napoleon was short.

Napoleon I Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, King of Italy (15
August 1769
– 5 May 1821) was a
general of the French Revolution; the ruler of France
as First
Consul (Premier Consul) of the French
Republic from 11
November 1799
to 18 May 1804; then
Emperor of the French (Empereur des Français) and King of Italy
under the name Napoleon I from 18
May 1804
to 6
April 1814;
and briefly restored as Emperor from 20
March to 22
June 1815.

Over the course of little more than a decade, the armies of France
under his command fought almost every European power (often
simultaneously) and acquired control of most of the western and central
mainland of Europe
by conquest or alliance until his disastrous invasion of Russia
in 1812, followed by defeat at the Battle
of Leipzig in October 1813, which led to his abdication
several months later and his exile
to the island of Elba.
He staged a comeback known as the Hundred
Days (les Cent Jours), but was again defeated decisively at
the Battle
of Waterloo in present day Belgium
on 18
June 1815,
followed shortly afterwards by his surrender to the British
and his exile to the island of Saint
Helena, where he died six years later.

Although Napoleon himself developed few military innovations, apart
from the divisional squares
employed in Egypt
and the placement of artillery
into batteries,
he used the best tactics from a variety of sources, and the modernized
French army, as reformed under the various revolutionary governments, to
score several major victories. His campaigns are studied at military
academies all over the world and he is generally regarded as one of the
greatest commanders ever to have lived. Aside from his military
achievements, Napoleon is also remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic
Code. He is considered by some to have been one of the "enlightened
despots".

Napoleon appointed several members of the
Bonaparte
family and close friends of his as monarchs of countries he conquered
and as important government figures (his brother Lucien
became France's Minister of Finance). Although their reigns did not
survive his downfall, a nephew, Napoleon
III, ruled France later in the nineteenth century.

Napoleon Bonaparte as a young officer

Early life and military career

He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte (in
Corsican,
Nabolione or Nabulione) in the town of Ajaccio
on Corsica,
France, on 15
August 1769,
only one year after the island was transferred to France by the Republic
of Genoa. He later adopted the more French-sounding Napoléon
Bonaparte.

His family was minor Italian
nobility
living in Corsica. His father, Carlo
Buonaparte, an attorney, was named Corsica's representative to the
court of Louis
XVI of France in 1778, where he remained for a number of years. The
dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, Maria Letizia
Ramolino.
Her firm discipline helped restrain the rambunctious Napoleon, nicknamed
Rabullione (the "meddler" or "disrupter").

Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background and family
connections afforded him greater opportunities to study than were
available to a typical Corsican of the time. On 15
May 1779,
at age nine, Napoleon was admitted to a French military school at
Brienne-le-Château,
a small town near Troyes.
He had to learn French before entering the school, but he spoke with a
marked Italian accent throughout his life and never learned to spell
properly. Upon graduation from Brienne in 1784, Bonaparte was admitted to the
elite École
Royale Militaire in Paris,
where he completed the two-year course of study in only one year. An
examiner judged him as "very applied [to the study of] abstract
sciences, little curious as to the others; [having] a thorough knowledge
of mathematics and geography[.]" Although he had initially sought a naval assignment, he studied
artillery
at the École Militaire. Upon graduation in September 1785, he was commissioned
as a second
lieutenant of artillery and took up his new duties in January 1786
at the age of 16.

On a side note, one naval assignment that he sought was on a voyage
to explore the Pacific in the summer of 1785. That expedition was led by
Jean-François
de Galaup, count de La Pérouse. Everyone involved disappeared in
1788, never to be seen again. Fortunately for Napoleon, he wasn't chosen
and he remained behind in France.

Napoleon served on garrison duty in
Valence
and Auxonne
until after the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 (although he took
nearly two years of leave in Corsica and Paris during this period). He
spent most of the next several years on Corsica, where a complex
three-way struggle was playing out between royalists, revolutionaries,
and Corsican nationalists. Bonaparte supported the Jacobin
faction and gained the position of lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of
volunteers. After coming into conflict with the increasingly
conservative nationalist leader, Pasquale
Paoli, Bonaparte and his family were forced to flee to France in
June 1793.

Through the help of fellow Corsican
Saliceti,
Napoleon was appointed as artillery commander in the French forces
besieging Toulon,
which had risen in revolt against the Reign
of Terror and was occupied by British
troops. He formulated a successful plan: he placed guns at Point
l'Eguillete, threatening the British ships in the harbour, forcing
them to evacuate. A successful assault, during which Bonaparte was
wounded in the thigh, led to the recapture of the city and a promotion
to brigadier-general. His actions brought him to the attention of the Committee
of Public Safety, and he became a close associate of Augustin
Robespierre, younger brother of the Revolutionary leader Maximilien
Robespierre. As a result, he was briefly imprisoned in the Chateau
d'Antibes on 6
August 1794
following the fall of the elder Robespierre, but was released within two
weeks.

The victorious general

The "whiff of grapeshot"

In 1795, Bonaparte was serving in
Paris
when royalists and counter-revolutionaries organized an armed protest
against the National
Convention on 3
October. Bonaparte was given command of the improvised forces
defending the Convention in the Tuileries
Palace. He seized artillery pieces with the aid of a young cavalry
officer, Joachim
Murat, who later became his brother-in-law. He utilized the
artillery the following day to repel the attackers. He later boasted
that he had cleared the streets with a "whiff of grapeshot"
(musket balls fired in cloth bags from the cannon, a devastating
anti-personnel munition), although the fighting had been vicious
throughout Paris. This triumph earned him sudden fame, wealth, and the
patronage of the new Directory,
particularly that of its leader, Barras.
Within weeks he was romantically attached to Barras's former mistress, Josephine
de Beauharnais, whom he married on 9
March 1796.

Detail from a 1796 portrait of Napoleon at the Bridge of the
Arcole
by Baron Antoine-Jean
Gros, currently on display in the Louvre, Paris

The Italian campaign of 1796–97

Days after his marriage, Bonaparte took command of the French
"Army of Italy", leading it on a successful invasion
of Italy. At the Lodi,
he gained the nickname of "The Little Corporal" (le petit
caporal), a term reflecting his camaraderie with his soldiers, many
of whom he knew by name. He drove the Austrians
out of Lombardy
and defeated the army of the Papal
States. Because Pope
Pius VI had protested the execution of Louis
XVI, France retaliated by annexing two small papal territories.
Bonaparte ignored the Directory's
order to march on Rome
and dethrone the Pope. It was not until the next year that General
Berthier captured Rome and took Pius VI prisoner on 20
February. The pope died of illness while in captivity. In early
1797, Bonaparte led
his army into Austria and forced that power to sue
for peace. The resulting Treaty
of Campo Formio gave France control of most of northern Italy, along
with the Low
Countries and Rhineland,
but a secret clause promised Venice
to Austria. Bonaparte then marched on Venice and forced its surrender,
ending over 1,000 years of independence. Later in 1797, Bonaparte
organized many of the French dominated territories in Italy into the Cisalpine
Republic.

His remarkable series of military triumphs were a result of his
ability to apply his encyclopedic knowledge of conventional military
thought to real-world situations, as demonstrated by his creative use of
artillery
tactics, using it as a mobile force to support his infantry.
As he described it: "I have fought sixty battles and I have learned
nothing which I did not know at the beginning." Contemporary
paintings of his headquarters during the Italian campaign depict his use
of the Chappe semaphore
line, first implemented in 1792. He was also a master of both intelligence
and deception and had an uncanny sense of when to strike. He often won
battles by concentrating his forces on an unsuspecting enemy by using
spies to gather information about opposing forces and by concealing his
own troop deployments. In this campaign, often considered his greatest,
Napoleon's army captured 160,000 prisoners, 2,000 cannons, and 170
standards. A year of campaigning had witnessed major breaks with the
traditional norms of 18th century warfare and marked a new era in
military history.

While campaigning in Italy, General Bonaparte became increasingly
influential in French politics. He published two newspapers, ostensibly
for the troops in his army, but widely circulated within France as well.
In May 1797 he founded a third newspaper, published in Paris, entitled Le
Journal de Bonaparte et des hommes vertueux. Elections in mid-1797
gave the royalist party increased power, alarming Barras and his allies
on the Directory.
The royalists, in turn, began attacking Bonaparte for looting Italy and
overstepping his authority in dealings with the Austrians. Bonaparte
sent General Augereau
to Paris to lead a coup
d'etat and purge the royalists on 4
September (18
Fructidor). This left Barras and his Republican allies in firm
control again, but dependent on Bonaparte's military command to stay
there. Bonaparte himself proceeded to the peace negotiations with
Austria, then returned to Paris in December as the conquering hero and
the dominant force in government, far more popular than any of the Directors.

The Egyptian expedition of 1798–99

In March 1798, Bonaparte proposed a
military
expedition to seize Egypt,
then a province of the Ottoman
Empire, seeking to protect French trade interests and undermine
Britain's access to India. The
Directory, although troubled by the scope and cost of the
enterprise, readily agreed to the plan in order to remove the popular
general from the center of power.

An unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of a
large group of scientists assigned to the invading French force: among
the discoveries that resulted was the finding of the Rosetta
Stone. This deployment of intellectual resources is considered by
some an indication of Bonaparte's devotion to the principles of the
Enlightenment, and by others as a masterstroke of propaganda,
obfuscating the true imperialist
motives of the invasion. In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the
support of the Egyptian populace, Bonaparte also issued proclamations
casting himself as a liberator of the people from Ottoman
oppression, and praising the precepts of Islam.

Bonaparte's expedition seized
Malta
from the Knights
of Saint John on 9
June and then landed successfully at Alexandria
on 1 July,
eluding (temporarily) pursuit by the British
Navy.

After landing on the coast of Egypt, the first battle was against the
Mamelukes,
an old power in the Middle East, approximately 4 miles from the
pyramids. Bonaparte's forces were greatly outnumbered by the advanced
cavalry, about 25,000 to 100,000, but Bonaparte came out on top, mainly
due to his strategy. Men formed hollow squares, each side facing out.
This made it possible to keep cannons and supplies safely on the inside,
while the soldiers could fire in every direction on the outside. This
made a very strong defense, and left it possible for many soldiers to
escape to fight again. In all, only 300 French were killed, as opposed
to approximately 6,000 Egyptians.

While the battle on land was a resounding French victory, the British
navy managed to compensate at sea. The ships that had landed Bonaparte
and his army sailed back to France, but a fleet of ships
of the line that had come with them remained to support the army
along the coast. On 1
August the British fleet found the French warships anchored in a
strong defensive position in the bay of Abukir.
The French believed that they were open to attack on only one side, the
other being protected by the shore. However, the arriving British fleet
under Horatio
Nelson managed to slip half their ships in between the land and the
French line, thus attacking from both sides. All but two of the French
vessels were captured or destroyed. Only the Guillaume Tell with
rear admiral Pierre-Charles
Villeneuve and the Généreux escaped. The Guillaume Tell
was caught not much later in the course of the British conquest of Malta.
Many blame the French loss in this Battle
of the Nile on French admiral Francois-Paul Brueys, who came up with
the failed defensive strategy. However, the French ships were also
undermanned, the officers demoralized, and Nelson's attack was a
surprise. In all, about 250 British and 1,700 French were killed. With
Bonaparte land-bound, his goal of strengthening the French position in
the Mediterranean
Sea was frustrated, but his army nonetheless succeeded in
consolidating power in Egypt, although it faced repeated nationalist
uprisings.

In early 1799, he led the army into the Ottoman province of
Syria,
now modern Israel,
and defeated numerically superior Ottoman
forces in several battles, but his army was weakened by disease and poor
supplies. He was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre,
and was forced to return to Egypt in May. In order to speed up the
retreat, Bonaparte took the controversial step of killing prisoners and
plague-stricken men along the way. His supporters have argued that this
decision was necessary given the continuing harassment of stragglers by
Ottoman forces.

Back in Egypt, on
25
July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.
This partially redressed his reputation from the naval defeat there a
year earlier.

With the Egyptian campaign stagnating, and political instability
developing back home, Bonaparte abandoned Egypt for Paris in August of
1799, leaving his troops behind under Marshal Kleber.
It has been suggested that Sir Sidney Smith and other British commanders
in the Mediterranean helped Bonaparte evade the British blockade,
thinking that he might support the Royalists back in France, but there's
no solid evidence in support of this.

The remaining troops, angry at Bonaparte and the French government
for having left them behind, were supposed to be honorably evacuated
under the terms of a treaty Kleber had negotiated with Smith in early
1800. However, British admiral Keith reneged and sent an amphibious
assault force of 30,000 Mamelukes against Kleber. The Mamelukes were
defeated at the battle of Heliopolis in March 1800, and Kleber then
suppressed an insurrection in Cairo. But he was assassinated in June
1800 by a Syrian student, and command of the French army went to general
Menou. Menou held command until August 1801, when, under continual
harassment by British and Ottoman forces, and after the loss of 13,500
men (mostly to disease), he capitulated to the British. Under the terms
of his surrender, the French army was repatriated in British ships,
along with a priceless hoard of Egyptian antiquities.

Ruler of France

The coup of 18 Brumaire

While in Egypt, Bonaparte tried to keep a close eye on European
affairs, relying largely on newspapers and dispatches that arrived only
irregularly. On 23
August 1799,
he abruptly set sail for France, taking advantage of the temporary
departure of British ships blockading French coastal ports.

Although he was later accused by political opponents of abandoning
his troops, his departure actually had been ordered by the Directory,
which had suffered a series of military
defeats to the forces of the Second
Coalition, and feared an invasion.

By the time he returned to Paris in October, the military situation
had improved due to several French victories. The Republic
was bankrupt, however, and the corrupt and inefficient Directory was
unpopular with the French public more than ever.

Bonaparte was approached by one of the Directors,
Sieyès,
seeking his support for a coup to overthrow the constitution.
The plot included Bonaparte's brother Lucien,
then serving as speaker of the Council
of Five Hundred, Roger
Ducos, another Director, and Talleyrand.
On 9
November (18
Brumaire), and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized
control and dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump
to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Ducos as provisional Consuls to
administer the government. Although Sieyès expected to dominate the new
regime, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution
of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First
Consul. This made him the most powerful person in France, a power
that was increased by the Constitution
of the Year X, which made him First Consul for life.

The First Consul

Bonaparte instituted several lasting reforms including centralized
administration of the départements,
higher education, a tax system, a central bank, law codes, and road and
sewer systems. He negotiated the Concordat
of 1801 with the Catholic
Church, seeking to reconcile the mostly Catholic population with his
regime. His set of civil laws, the Napoleonic
Code or Civil Code, has importance to this day in many countries.
The Code was prepared by committees of legal experts under the
supervision of Jean
Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, who held the office Second
Consul from 1799 to 1804; Bonaparte, however, participated actively
in the sessions of the Council
of State that revised the drafts. Other codes were commissioned by
Bonaparte to codify criminal and commerce law. In 1808, a Code of
Criminal Instruction was published, which enacted precise rules of
judicial procedure. Although contemporary standards may consider these
procedures as favouring the prosecution, when enacted they sought to
preserve personal freedoms and to remedy the prosecutorial abuses
commonplace in European courts.

An interlude of peace

In 1800, Bonaparte returned to Italy, which the Austrians had
reconquered during his absence in Egypt. He and his troops crossed the
Alps in spring (although he actually rode a mule, not the white charger
on which David famously depicted him). While the campaign began badly,
the Austrians were eventually routed in June at Marengo, leading to an
armistice. Napoleon's brother Joseph, who was leading the peace
negotiations in Lunéville, reported that due to British backing for
Austria, Austria would not recognize France's newly gained territory. As
negotiations became more and more fractious, Bonaparte gave orders to
his general Moreau to strike Austria once more. Moreau led France to
victory at Hohenlinden. As a result the Treaty of Lunéville was signed
in February 1801, under which the French gains of the Treaty of Campo
Formio were reaffirmed and increased; the British signed the Treaty of
Amiens in March 1802, which set terms for peace, including the division
of several colonial territories.

The peace between France and Britain was uneasy and short-lived. The
monarchies of Europe were reluctant to recognize a republic, fearing
that the ideas of the revolution might be exported to them. In Britain,
the brother of Louis XVI was welcomed as a state guest although
officially Britain recognized France as a republic. Britain failed to
evacuate Malta and Egypt as promised, and protested against France's
annexation of Piedmont, and Napoleon's Act of Mediation in Switzerland
(although neither of these areas was covered by the Treaty of Amiens).

In 1803, Bonaparte faced a major setback when an army he sent to
reconquer Haiti and establish a base was destroyed by a combination of
yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Recognizing that the French possessions on the mainland of North America
would now be indefensible, and facing imminent war with Britain, he sold
them to the United States —the Louisiana Purchase—for less than
three cents per acre ($7.40/km²). The dispute over Malta
provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France in 1803 to
support French royalists.

Napoleon on his Imperial throne

Jean Auguste Dominique
Ingres, 1806

Emperor of the French

In January 1804, Bonaparte's police uncovered an assassination plot
against him, ostensibly sponsored by the Bourbons. In retaliation,
Bonaparte ordered the arrest of the Duc d'Enghien, in a violation of the
sovereignty of Baden. After a hurried secret trial, the Duke was
executed on 21 March. Bonaparte then used this incident to justify the
re-creation of a hereditary monarchy in France, with himself as Emperor,
on the theory that a Bourbon restoration would be impossible once the
Bonapartist succession was entrenched in the constitution.

Napoleon crowned himself Emperor on 2 December 1804 at Notre Dame de
Paris. Claims that he seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII
during the ceremony in order to avoid subjecting himself to the
authority of the pontiff are apocryphal; in fact, the coronation
procedure had been agreed upon in advance. After the Imperial regalia
had been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon crowned himself before crowning
his wife Joséphine as Empress (the moment depicted in David's famous
painting, illustrated above). Then at Milan's cathedral on 26 May 1805,
Napoleon was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

By 1805 Britain was reluctantly drawn into a Third Coalition against
Napoleon, after he made it clear that he wouldn't stop his wars of
expansion on the continent. Napoleon knew the French fleet could not
defeat the Royal Navy and therefore tried to lure the British fleet away
from the English Channel so that, in theory at least, a Spanish and
French fleet could take control of the Channel for twenty-four hours,
which he erroneously thought long enough for French armies to cross to
England. Napoleon was wholly ignorant of nautical matters, his orders to
his admirals were often contradictory or useless, and the fleet of rafts
he had prepared would have sunk in the Channel, or taken at least three
days to transport his army, even if the crossing were unopposed.
However, with Austria and Russia preparing an invasion of France and its
allies, he had to change his plans and turn his attention to the
continent. The newly formed Grande Armee secretly marched to Germany. On
20 October 1805, it surprised the Austrians at Ulm. The next day,
however, with the Battle
of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), the British
navy gained lasting control of the seas. A few weeks later, Napoleon
defeated Austria and Russia at the Austerlitz, a decisive victory he
would be the most proud of in his military career. (2 December / 1 year
anniversary of his coronation), forcing Austria to yet again sue for
peace.

The Fourth Coalition was assembled the following year, and Napoleon
defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806). He
marched on against advancing Russian armies through Poland, and was
attacked at the bloody Battle of Eylau on 6 February 1807. After a
decisive victory at Friedland, he signed a treaty at Tilsit in East
Prussia with Tsar Alexander I of Russia, dividing Europe between the two
powers. He placed puppet rulers on the thrones of German states,
including his brother Jerome as king of the new state of Westphalia. In
the French-controlled part of Poland, he established the Duchy of
Warsaw, with King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony as ruler. Between 1809
and 1813, Napoleon also served as Regent of the Grand Duchy of Berg for
his brother Louis Bonaparte.

Ludwig van Beethoven initially dedicated his third symphony, the
Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), to Napoleon in the belief that
the general would sustain the democratic and republican ideals of the
French Revolution, but in 1804, as Napoleon's imperial ambitions became
clear, renamed the symphony as the "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per
festeggiare il Sovvenire di un grand'Uomo", or in English,
"composed to celebrate the memory of a great man".

The Peninsular War and the War of the Fifth Coalition

In addition to military endeavors against Britain, Napoleon also
waged economic war, attempting to enforce a Europe-wide commercial
boycott of Britain called the "Continental System". Although
this action hurt the British economy, it also damaged the French economy
and was not a decisive factor.

Portugal did
not comply with this Continental System and in 1807 Napoleon sought Spain's
support for an invasion of Portugal. When Spain refused, Napoleon
invaded Spain as well. After mixed results were produced by his
generals, Napoleon himself took command and defeated the Spanish army,
retook Madrid and then outmaneuvering a British army sent to support the
Spanish and drove it to the coast. Though not forcing a full withdrawl
of the British Army from Iberia and led to the Peninsular War which saw
the constant defeat of French Marshells, at the hands of The Duke of
Wellington and the eventual invasion of the south of France in 1814.
Napoleon installed one of his marshals and brother-in-law, Joachim Murat,
as the King of Naples,
and his brother Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain.

Surrender of Madrid (detail), Antoine-Jean Gros, c. 1810

The Spanish, inspired by nationalism and the Roman Catholic Church,
and angry over atrocities committed by French troops, rose in revolt. At
the same time, Austria unexpectedly broke its alliance with France and
Napoleon was forced to assume command of forces on the Danube and German
fronts. A bloody draw ensued at Aspern-Essling (21–22 May 1809) near Vienna,
which was the closest Napoleon ever came to a defeat in a battle with
more or less equal numbers on each side. After a two month interval, the
principal French and Austrian armies engaged again near Vienna resulting
in a French victory at Battle of Wagram (6 July).

Following this a new peace was signed between Austria and France and
in the following year the Austrian Archduchess Marie Louise married
Napoleon, following his divorce of Josephine.

Invasion of Russia

Although the Congress of Erfurt had sought to preserve the
Russo-French alliance, by 1811 tensions were again increasing between
the two nations. Although Alexander and Napoleon had a friendly personal
relationship since their first meeting in 1807, Alexander had been under
strong pressure from the Russian aristocracy to break off the alliance
with France. Had Russia withdrawn without France doing anything the
other countries would have followed suit and revolted against Napoleon.
Thus it was necessary to show that France would respond.

The first sign that the alliance was deteriorating was the easing of
the application of the Continental System in Russia, angering Napoleon.
By 1812, advisors to Alexander suggested the possibility of an invasion
of the French Empire (and the recapture of Poland).

Large numbers of troops were deployed to the Polish borders (reaching
over 300,000 out of the total Russian army strength of 410,000). After
receiving the initial reports of Russian war preparations, Napoleon
began expanding his Grande Armée to a massive force of over
450,000-600,000 men (despite already having over 300,000 men deployed in
Iberia). Napoleon ignored repeated advice against an invasion of the
vast Russian heartland, and prepared his forces for an offensive
campaign. On 22 June 1812, Napoleon's invasion of Russia
commenced.

Napoleon, in an attempt to gain increased support from Polish
nationalists and patriots, termed the war the "Second Polish
War" (the first Polish war being the liberation of Poland from
Russia, Prussia and Austria). Polish patriots wanted the Russian part of
partitioned Poland to be incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and
a new Kingdom of Poland created, although this was rejected by Napoleon,
who feared it would bring Prussia and Austria into the war against
France. Napoleon also rejected requests to free the Russian serfs,
fearing this might provoke a conservative reaction in his rear.

The Russians under Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly ingeniously
avoided a decisive engagement which Napoleon longed for, preferring to
retreat ever deeper into the heart of Russia. A brief attempt at
resistance was offered at Smolensk (16-17 August), but the Russians were
defeated in a series of battles in the area and Napoleon resumed the
advance. The Russians then repeatedly avoided battle with the Grande
Armée, although in a few cases only because Napoleon
uncharacteristically hesitated to attack when the opportunity presented
itself. The Russians during their strategic retreat, used the scorched
earth tactic. They burned crops and slaughtered livestock so the French
would have nothing to eat. Along with the hunger, the French also had to
face the harsh Russian winter. An American military study has concluded
that the winter only had an effect when Napoleon was already in full
retreat. "However, in regard to the claims of "General
Winter," it should be noted that the main body of Napoleon's Grande
Armée diminished by half during the first eight weeks of his invasion
before the major battle of the campaign. This decrease was partly due to
garrisoning supply centres, but disease, desertions, and casualties
sustained in various minor actions caused thousands of losses. At
Borodino on 7 September 1812 - the only major engagement fought in
Russia - Napoleon could muster no more than 135,000 troops, and he lost
at least 30,000 of them to gain a narrow and Pyrrhic victory almost 600
miles deep in hostile territory. The sequels were his uncontested and
self-defeating occupation of Moscow and his humiliating retreat, which
began on 19 October, before the first severe frosts later that month and
the first snow on 5 November."

Criticized over his tentative strategy of continual retreat, Barclay
was replaced by Kutuzov, although he continued Barclay's strategy.
Kutuzov eventually offered battle outside Moscow on 7 September. Losses
were nearly even for both armies, with slightly more casualties on the
Russian side, after what may have been the bloodiest day of battle in
history - the Battle of Borodino (see article for comparisons to the
first day of the Battle of the Somme). Although Napoleon was far from
defeated, the Russian army had accepted, and withstood, the major battle
the French hoped would be decisive. After the battle, the Russian army
withdrew, and retreated past Moscow.

The Russians retreated and Napoleon was able to enter Moscow,
assuming that the fall of Moscow would end the war and that Alexander I
would negotiate peace. However, on orders of the city's military
governor and commander-in-chief, Fyodor Rostopchin, rather than
capitulating, Moscow was ordered burned. Within the month, fearing loss
of control back in France, Napoleon left Moscow.

The French suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the
Army had begun as over 650,000 frontline troops, but in the end fewer
than 40,000 crossed the Berezina River (November 1812) to escape. In
total French losses in the campaign were 570,000 against about 400,000
Russian casualties and several hundred thousand civilian deaths.

The War of the Sixth Coalition

There was a lull in fighting over the winter of 1812–13 whilst both
the Russians and the French recovered from their massive losses. A small
Russian army harassed the French in Poland and eventually 30,000 French
troops there withdrew to the German states to rejoin the expanding force
there - numbering 130,000 with the reinforcements from Poland. This
force continued to expand, with Napoleon aiming for a force of 400,000
French troops supported by a quarter of a million German troops.

Heartened by Napoleon's losses in Russia, Prussia soon rejoined the
Coalition that now included Russia, the United Kingdom, Spain, and
Portugal. Napoleon assumed command in Germany and soon inflicted a
series of defeats on the Allies culminating in the Battle of Dresden on
26-27 August 1813 causing almost 100,000 casualties to the Coalition
forces (the French sustaining only around 30,000).

Despite these initial successes, however, the numbers continued to
mount against Napoleon as Sweden
and Austria
joined the Coalition. Eventually the French army was pinned down by a
force twice its size at the Battle of Nations (16-19 October) at
Leipzig. Some of the German states switched sides in the midst of the
battle, further undermining the French position. This was by far the
largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars and cost both sides a combined
total of over 120,000 casualties.

After this Napoleon withdrew in an orderly fashion back into France,
but his army was now reduced to less than 100,000 against more than half
a million Allied troops. The French were now surrounded (with British
armies pressing from the south in addition to the Coalition forces
moving in from the German states) and vastly outnumbered. The French
armies could only delay an inevitable defeat.

Return from Elba

Exile in Elba, Les Cent-Jours (The Hundred Days) and Waterloo

Paris was occupied on 31 March 1814. At the urging of his marshals,
Napoleon abdicated on 6 April in favour of his son. The Allies, however,
demanded unconditional surrender and Napoleon abdicated again,
unconditionally, on 11 April. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors
exiled him to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean 20 km off the
coast of Italy.

In France, the royalists had taken over and restored King Louis XVIII
to power. Separated from his wife and son (who had come under Austrian
control), cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of
Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours that he was about to be banished to
a remote island in the Atlantic, Napoleon escaped from Elba on 26
February 1815 and returned to the mainland on 1 March 1815. King Louis
XVIII sent the Fifth Regiment, led by Marshal Michel Ney who had
formerly served under Napoleon in Russia, to meet him at Grenoble on 7
March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse
and, when he was within earshot of Ney's forces, shouted "Soldiers
of the Fifth, you recognize me. If any man would shoot his emperor, he
may do so now". Following a brief silence, the soldiers shouted
"Vive L'Empereur!" and marched with Napoleon to Paris.
He arrived on 20 March, quickly raising a regular army of 140,000 and a
volunteer force of around 200,000 and governed for a Hundred Days.

Napoleon's final defeat came at the hands of the Duke of Wellington
and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo in
present-day Belgium
on 18 June 1815.

Off the port of Rochefort, after unsuccessfully attempting to escape
to the United
States, Napoléon made his formal surrender while on board HMS Bellerophon
on 15 July 1815.

Exile in Saint Helena and death

Napoleon was imprisoned and then exiled by the British to the island
of Saint Helena (2,800 km off the Bight of Guinea in the South Atlantic
Ocean) from 15 October 1815.
Whilst there, with a small cadre of followers, he dictated his memoirs
and criticized his captors. Sick for much of his time on Saint Helena,
Napoleon died on 5 May 1821. His last words were: "France, the
Army, head of the Army, Josephine". His heritage was distributed to
his close followers like the General Marbot, whom he asked to continue
his writings on the "Grandeur de la France".

Napoleon had asked in his will to be buried on the banks of the
Seine, but was buried on Saint Helena, in the "valley of the
willows". In 1840, his remains were taken to France in the frigate Belle-Poule
and was to be entombed in a porphyry sarcophagus at Les Invalides,
Paris. However, Egyptian porphyry (used for the tombs of Roman emperors)
was unavailable, so red quartzite was obtained--but from Russian
Finland, eliciting protests from those who still remembered the Russians
as enemies. Hundreds of millions have visited his tomb since that date.
A replica of his simple Saint Helena tomb is also found at Les Invalides.

Cause of death

The cause of Napoleon's death has been disputed on numerous
occasions, and the controversy remains to this day. Francesco
Antommarchi, Napoleon's personal physician, gave stomach cancer as a
reason for Napoleon's death in his death certificate.

In 1955, the diaries of Louis Marchand, Napoléon's valet, appeared
in print. He describes Napoléon in the months leading up to his death,
and led many, most notably Sten Forshufvud and Ben Weider, to conclude
that he had been killed by arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was at the time
sometimes used as a poison as it was undetectable when administered over
a long period of time. Arsenic was also used in some wallpaper, as a
green pigment, and even in some patent medicines. As Napoleon's body was
found to be remarkably well-preserved when it was moved in 1840, it
gives support to the arsenic theory, as arsenic is a strong
preservative. In 2001, Pascal Kintz, of the Strasbourg Forensic
Institute in France, added credence to this claim with a study of
arsenic levels found in a lock of Napoleon's hair preserved after his
death: they were seven to thirty-eight times higher than normal.

Cutting up hairs into short segments and analysing each segment
individually provides a histogram of arsenic concentration in the body.
This analysis on hair from Napoléon suggests that large but non-lethal
doses were absorbed at random intervals. The arsenic severely weakened
Napoléon and remained in his system.

More recent analysis on behalf of the magazine Science et Vie
showed that similar concentrations of arsenic can be found in Napoleon's
hair in samples taken from 1805, 1814 and 1821. The lead investigator,
Ivan Ricordel (head of toxicology for the Paris Police), stated that if
arsenic had been the cause, Napoléon would have died years earlier. The
group suggested that the most likely source in this case was a hair
tonic. Prior to the discovery of antibiotics, arsenic was also a widely
used treatment for syphilis. This has led to speculation that Napoleon
might have suffered from that disease.

The medical regime imposed on Napoleon by his doctors included
treatment with antimony potassium tartrate, regular enemas and a 600
milligram dose of mercuric chloride to purge his intestines in the days
immediately prior to his death. A group of researchers from the San
Francisco Medical Examiner's Department speculate that this treatment
may have led to Napoleon's death by causing a serious potassium
deficiency.

In May, 2005 a team of Swiss physicians claimed that the reason for
Napoleon's death was stomach cancer,
which was also the cause of his father's death. From a multitude of
forensic reports they derive that Napoleon at his death weighed approx.
76 kg (168 lb) while a year earlier he weighed approx. 91 kg (200 lb),
confirming the autopsy result reported by Antommarchi. A team of
physicians from the University of Monterspertoli led by Professor Biondi
recently confirmed this.

In October, 2005, a document was unearthed in Scotland
that presented an account of the autopsy, which again seems to confirm
Antommarchi's conclusion.

Napoleon's first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais

Marriages and children

Napoleon was married twice:

9 March 1796 to Joséphine de Beauharnais. He formally adopted her
son Eugène and cousin Stéphanie after assuming the throne to
arrange "dynastic" marriages for them. He had her daughter
Hortense marry his brother, Louis.
Though their marriage was unconventional, and both were known to
have many affairs, they were ultimately devoted to each other and
when Joséphine agreed to divorce
so he could remarry in the hopes of producing an heir, it was
devastating for both. It was also the first under the Napoleonic
Code. Napoleon's letters to Josephine are romantic and interesting.

11
March 1810
by proxy
to Archduchess
Marie Louise of Austria, then in a ceremony on 1 April. They
remained married until his death, although she did not join him in
his exile.

Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles (20
March 1811
– 22
July 1832),
King of Rome. Known as Napoleon
II of France although he never ruled. Was later known as the
Duke of Reichstadt. He had no issue.

Legacy

Napoleon is credited with introducing the concept of the modern
professional conscript army to Europe, an innovation which other states
eventually followed. He did not introduce many new concepts into the
French military system, borrowing mostly from previous theorists and the
implementations of preceding French governments, but he did expand or
develop much of what was already in place. Corps replaced divisions as
the largest army units, artillery was integrated into reserve batteries,
the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry once again became a
crucial formation in French military doctrine.

Napoleon's biggest influence in the military sphere was in the
conduct of warfare. Weapons and technology remained largely static
through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, but 18th century
operational strategy underwent massive restructuring. Sieges became
infrequent to the point of near-irrelevance, a new emphasis towards the
destruction, not just outmaneuvering, of enemy armies emerged. Invasions
of enemy territory occurred over broader fronts, thus introducing a
plethora of strategic opportunities that made wars costlier and, just as
importantly, more decisive (this strategy has since become known as
Napoleonic warfare, though he himself did not give it this name). Defeat
for a European power now meant much more than losing isolated enclaves;
near-Carthaginian peaces intertwined whole national efforts,
sociopolitical, economic, and militaristic, into gargantuan collisions
that severely upset international conventions as understood at the time.
It can be argued that Napoleon's initial success sowed the seeds for his
downfall. Not used to such catastrophic defeats in the rigid power
system of 18th century Europe, many nations found existence under the
French yoke difficult, sparking revolts, wars, and general instability
that plagued the continent until 1815.

In France, Napoleon is seen by some as having ended lawlessness and
disorder in France, and the wars he fought as having served to export
the Revolution to the rest of Europe. The movements of national
unification and the rise of the nation state, notably in Italy
and Germany, may have been precipitated by the Napoleonic rule of those
areas.

The Napoleonic Code was adopted throughout much of Europe and
remained in force after Napoleon's defeat. Professor Dieter Langewiesche
of the University of Tübingen describes the code as a
"revolutionary project" which spurred the development of
bourgeois society in Germany
by expanding the right to own property and breaking the back of
feudalism. Langewiesche also credits Napoleon with reorganizing what had
been the Holy Roman Empire made up of more than 1,000 entities into a
more streamlined network of 40 states providing the basis for the German
Confederation and the future unification of Germany under the German
Empire in 1871.

In mathematics Napoleon is traditionally given credit for discovering
and proving Napoleon's theorem, although there is no specific evidence
that he did so. The theorem states that if equilateral triangles are
constructed on the sides of any triangle (all outward or all inward),
the centres of those equilateral triangles themselves form an
equilateral triangle.

Critics of Napoleon argue that his true legacy was a loss of status
for France and many needless deaths:

After all, the military record is unquestioned—17 years of wars,
perhaps six million Europeans dead, France bankrupt, her overseas
colonies lost. And it was all such a great waste, for when the
self-proclaimed tête d'armée was done, France's "losses were
permanent" and she "began to slip from her position as the
leading power in Europe to second-class status—that was Bonaparte's
true legacy."

Napoleon was in many ways the direct inspiration for later autocrats:
he never flinched when facing the prospect of war and destruction for
thousands, friend or foe, and turned his search of undisputed rule into
a continuous cycle of conflict throughout Europe, ignoring treaties and
conventions alike. Even if other European powers continuously offered
Napoleon terms that would have restored France's borders to situations
only dreamt by the Bourbon kings, he always refused compromise, and only
accepted surrender.

Nevertheless, many in the international community still admire the
many accomplishments of the emperor as evidenced by the International
Napoleonic Congress held in Dinard, France in July 2005 that included
participation by members of the French and American military, French
politicians, scholars from as far away as Israel and Russia, and a
parade recreating the Grand Army.

Moreover, some probably wish Napoleon had achieved his unrealized
goal

‘to make it a law that only those lawyers and attorneys should
receive fees who had won their cases. How much litigation would have
been prevented by such a measure! For it is quite obvious that there
is not a lawyer who, after a first look at the case, would not turn it
down if it seemed doubtful. It need not be feared that a man who earns
his living from his work might take on a case for the simple pleasure
of hearing himself talk; yet even if he did, he would harm no one but
himself. . . . I am convinced to this day that the idea is
brilliant.’

Napoleon was hated by his many enemies, but respected by them at the
same time. The Duke of Wellington, Sir Arthur Wellesley, when asked who
he thought was the greatest general that ever lived, answered “In this
age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.”

Misconceptions about Napoleon's height

Contrary to popular belief, Napoleon was actually slightly taller
than an average Frenchman of the 19th century. After his death in 1821,
the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 ft 2 in French
units, corresponding to 5 ft 6.5 in (1.69 m) using Imperial units. A
French inch was 2.71 centimetres while an Imperial inch is 2.54
centimetres. The metric system was introduced during the French First
Republic, but was not in widespread use until after Napoleon's death.

In addition to this miscalculation, his nickname le petit caporal
adds to the confusion, as non-francophones mistakenly take petit
as literally meaning "small"; in fact, it is an affectionate
term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers (for example, petit(e)
ami(e) means "boyfriend" (without 'e's) and
"girlfriend" (with 'e's) in French). He also surrounded
himself with the soldiers of his elite guard, who were always six feet
tall or taller.

The
Napoleon Series - Acknowledging the extraordinary talents of the
man who defined an age (1789-1821) and the remarkable men and women
who peopled and shaped it, the Napoleon Series seeks to promote the
continued, scholarly exploration of that age.